


The Once Soldier

by Backbiter222



Category: Original Work
Genre: Battle, Death, Derserting, F/M, German, God - Freeform, Guns, Killing, Letters, Notes, SOLDIER - Freeform, War, Writing, coward - Freeform, trenches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 09:05:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15264090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Backbiter222/pseuds/Backbiter222
Summary: A lonely soldier sits in a trench writing. He does not want to fight. Not anymore. He was changed by fighting, by horror, by experience. He just wants to leave. But he can't.





	The Once Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not my favorite by any means. But some people like it so I figured it couldn't hurt to post it. Hope you guys like it.

          There's something I should like to say. That is, there is something I should very much like you to understand. I do not have the slightest desire to be a soldier. Well, not anymore. I never should have and never will again.

 

          I cannot bring myself to kill, to harm, to hurt. Not anymore.

 

          There is a battle raging overhead. I do not have a gun. Not anymore.

 

          I do not take part. Not anymore.

 

          I am sitting in the bottom of the trench we dug, holding my Star of David. I just want to live.

 

          I can hear the screams from here. Of men calling and crying and praying. This is the worst attack yet. We will not survive.

 

          There is a man next to me. I do not know his name. He was shot just minutes ago. I feel his eyes on me, burning holes through me.

 

          “You coward,” he whispers to me, for that is all he can do,”I die here and you hide and write. I hope your God strikes you down.”

 

          After saying his piece, he falls down.

 

          I look over five minutes later. He is dead.

 

          I was not like this in the beginning. Not then, no. I was an eager young soldier, trigger happy and carefree. I only shot people from a far distance. Never saw a face.

 

          The first man I ever killed, the first man whose face I looked into and shot, is the reason for my actions today. Do not read my words and think to call me a traitor to my country.

 

          There was a shell. And in the crater it left behind were two people. Me. Me and the Man. But he was not a man. More like a boy. He could not have been more than sixteen.

 

          I still remember with perfect clarity the last words he said.

 

_“Bitte töte mich nicht! Ich will nicht töten! Lass mich gehen!”_

 

          I shot him. In the head. I told myself he was pointing a gun at me but that is of no comfort. I still shot that boy in the head.

 

          And only later did I find out what he had said.

 

_“Please don't kill me! I don't want to kill! Let me go!”_

 

          I then swore to take not another life. And I will stand by that promise. For is it not the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”?

 

          I know that killing in war is different, but it is not different to me. To me, it is all murder now.

 

          The Others are getting closer. My friend, Thomas, falls with a bullet in his heart. His eyes scream pain and his mouth is open in a soundless cry. He hits the ground just by me. The gun he had held, had fired, had used to kill falls onto me. I fling the cursed thing away.

 

          I will not touch another weapon of war.

 

          The Others are coming. I can hear them calling out as they charge. More men fall to the ground beside me.

 

          The air is thick with smoke and ash and gunpowder. I cough and hold my Star.

 

          I think to my home. Of my sister, still in school. Of my parents and my friends. Of my girlfriend whose last words were, “Come back to me.”

 

          I cry, thinking of how that is a promise I can not fulfill. I think of all the promises I can no longer fulfill.

 

          The tears flood down my cheeks and onto my uniform.

 

          The uniform I hate.

 

          “By God let me live! Let us all live!” I cry out in anguish.

 

          More men topple down to the hard packed dirt and lay still. Too still.

 

          The Others are marching closer. I can hear the rhythmic pounding of their footsteps. I know they are coming to kill. They will kill us and move on. More to the next town and the next and the next.

 

          Of the five hundred soldiers in our battalion, only thirty some remain. And me.

 

          The bodies are piling up and need to be buried. I want to help, but the Others are too close.

 

          They will not have time to finish.

 

          My God, it’s coming. They are coming. I reach for the Star of David hanging around my neck. My brothers in arms are falling beside me, bullets ripping through their fragile human bodies. They sound so wrong, hitting the ground as they are. The Others come over the lip of the trench. I pray to God, “Please let me in. Please let me into Heaven.”

 

          It is a boy I see first. A young boy, maybe about sixteen. How fitting.


End file.
